Physiotherapists in Fleet treat many different conditions including the issues profiled below.

Physiotherapy and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

COPD or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a common and important chronic condition which affects about 1.5 million people in the United Kingdom. Hospitalisation is common as around 25% of COPD sufferers are admitted each year with a worsening of their condition. Chest physiotherapy is routinely employed in an attempt to improve air entry or to assist in the removal of secretions, using various techniques including manual treatment, treatment with equipment and walking programmes. Two techniques, positive expiratory pressure (PEP) and intermittent positive pressure ventilation (IPPV), have shown an ability to increase the amount of sputum brought up in patients where sputum retention is a problem.

One treatment which physiotherapists routinely use with respiratory patients is to get them walking again, as fitness declines quickly with best rest when sick and getting up and about promotes clearing of secretions naturally by coughing. This improves blood gases, shortness of breath and physical stamina. Moderate scientific evidence exists that this treatment is effective in respiratory patients and most physiotherapy techniques have been shown to be safe rather than particularly effective. Percussion, the hitting of the chest with the hands, has not been shown to be effective and is used less and less also for safety concerns.

Disc Prolapses

In a disc prolapse the internal material of the disc becomes displaced in relation to the outer annulus. The annular rings should be around the disc and the water retaining nucleus at the centre of the disc should remain there. In one kind of protrusion the disc bulges the annular fibres outwards but the nuclear material remains inside the disc. If the annular fibres rupture right through their thickness then part of the nucleus can extrude outside the confines of the disc but it still remains in contact with the rest of the nucleus inside the disc.

A third type of disc prolapse can occur where the disc tissue is extruded from the disc but then is separated from the nucleus and exists as an independent fragment outside the disc walls. Disc prolapses or herniations do not seem to be well connected with age or changes of degeneration of the discs even though it is again most common at lower lumbar levels which are subject to both degeneration and stresses more than other spinal regions. Even though disc prolapses are often called .slipped discs., the disc cannot slip as it is tightly bound to the vertebrae above and below.